


my ichor, and you the blade

by Biggus Slickus (crownlessliestheking)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, Injury, Injury Recovery, Inspired by Hades and Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Intermission style, Light Pining, M/M, Mythos AU, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 06:34:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29256033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownlessliestheking/pseuds/Biggus%20Slickus
Summary: You meet the newling God of Spring atop a mountain with the others, at his presentation. He leers from behind Summer skirts. His fingers are claws.  He is older than you thought- she has hidden him away. Difficult enough to hide a god at all, let alone one now in his prime. You suspect there is a reason for it; you don’t particularly care for the reason. The fruit on the table ripens to the point of bursting and then over, sweetness gone sour. Your rot takes care of the rest.They disintegrate to festering nothing.(This is only the beginning.)
Relationships: Diamonds Droog/Spades Slick
Kudos: 4





	my ichor, and you the blade

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I did read Lore Olympus and yes it has been lurking in my brain until this moment. For the Intermission server's Mythos AU Week. I have twisted this myth until it is barely recognizable and leaned VERY heavily on Persephone as the Bringer of Death, and I'm cool with that.

**i.**

You meet the newling God of Spring atop a mountain with the others, at his presentation. He leers from behind Summer skirts. His fingers are claws. He is smaller than you expected and older than you might have thought; most are barely of age or just come into their powers, by the time they are presented on Olympus. If they are presented on Olympus. She has hidden him away. Difficult enough to hide a god at all, let alone one now in his prime. You suspect there is a reason for it; you don’t particularly care for the reason. He doesn’t look thrilled to be here; he’s far more open about it than you are. His anger is scrawled across his face plain to see.

The fruit on the table ripens to the point of bursting and then over, sweetness gone sour. Your rot takes care of the rest. They disintegrate to festering nothing.

The god’s eyes narrow, his chin lifts as he catches your gaze. The goddess’s hand on his shoulder is as a chain. You are the one who looks away first, and you don’t say anything. What the Eighth Goddess does is her business, as is who she commands. She’s a classy dame, as far as you know. And even if you’re in charge of the Underworld, an entire third of the world and all its riches in the palm of your hand, you know better than to start anything with her. If nothing else, she has your grudging respect.

Granted, that’s all you give out these days, and you’ll admit you can be miserly with it. You wouldn’t be, if there were anyone worth it.

You don’t think the snarling, fanged bastard she brought with her is going to be worth it. He’s loud, draws attention, but you’re not sure about the rest. You don’t think much of him, only that something about her hands on him that bothers you. Maybe it’s how he reacts to it- anyone would be lucky to have her touch them, for all that she brings summer-bright fires and summer-blight plagues that send thousands flocking to your halls. She’s a goddess, she demands the same kind of worship as the rest of you. Only from what you know about her, she’s got less qualms about _taking_ it. She’s not one for tradition- even the name she has some of them call her, _Snow_ , is in defiance of her season. It suits a winter goddess more, but there’s none of those left.

You know what happened to the last one; you all do. Or rather, who happened. You kept your mouth shut; all you had to deal with was the influx of souls, and that was enough of a pain to sort through without navigating the politics of pride. That’s the thing about gods, you think. The egos.

And this one, who meets your gaze with narrowed eyes and a challenge, who doesn’t flinch from the hand searing into his shoulder? He’s got enough ego for it to be a problem.  Forget what you said, about not knowing if he’s worth it. He looks like he’s decided that he damn well is, and that it’s his due- and as a god, you can’t argue that he’s not within his rights to, at least from mortals.  He’s going to be trouble; he interests you. That’s trouble too, in its own way. But you can handle it;  you’ve weathered worse storms and tempers, and this one, you don’t expect to see too often.

He is something new, which you rarely encounter. You watch him snarl at the god you all call king because you must, his own disrespect barely veiled. The Eighth is told to keep him in hand, and he snarls at that, too, though her face is frozen in anger. He is something interesting, you think. More than you had hoped to see on this forsaken mountain, where the light burns your eyes and the others whisper at your presence. He doesn’t seem to care, one way or another, past; it shouldn’t be refreshing.

You leave early, as you always do, and you feel his eyes burning into your back. You don’t kow why. He’s interesting, yes, but that does not make him yours.

(You do not wander if his hands are warm, where they are clenched into fists at his sides.)

**ii.**

You meet him again in the Mortal Realm, and for all that you knew that Summer made her sprawling kingdom here, lush and soft and burning in a great haze of smoke- to your dismay for it means more souls and more work, but no doubt to her delight, for fires set in the blinding heat of the sun are something she revels in, reminding men that her power is deadly-, you did not think to find her companion here.

Here, being the jut of a cliff overlooking the flames. It’s worse than the god of revels would cause; worse still than the thirteen other dangerous idiots who call themselves immortals and the Eighth’s friends. Acquaintances, perhaps. She isn’t the type to have friends, not really.

You found him staring into the heat of the wildfire, strong even from here. His lips are chapped, they bleed gold from a single crack near the corner. From that, you surmise he has been here a long time. Even from this height, the air is arid. You don’t dislike the smell of smoke, but this smoke, this reek of burnt flesh, you could do without. It seeps into your clothes and hair.

You could turn around, leave. You do not have business here truly; you do not need to witness death do its job, only handle the aftermath. But you don’t.

Instead, you take three steps closer and ask him what he’s doing here. He startles, visibly, and the grass around you grows to a bind faster than you had expected. It withers to dust with half a thought, a perfect circle of darkness around you. He looks predictably unimpressed. He does not apologize.

He says isn’t it fucking obvious what he’s doing. He’s watching. He tells you that the fires have been burning for a week now. You tell him that you know this already. He tells you that she’s done it. He spits her name out like it’s a curse; to him, maybe it is. You tell him you know that, too. He wants to know if you’re such a smart guy, that you know everything. You say no, just no one else would let it last for so long nor burn so hot.

A woman insulted her, he finally says, grudging. Said she never saw any goddesses, that _she_ was the fairest one around. Doubt the stupid bitch saw any goddess at the end, but she sure knew what she was inviting. He says that the idiots there had been praying for a drier summer than last year. There’d been floods, he tells you, displeased. 

You say that you doubt very much this is what they meant by it. He shrugs, and says that they shouldn’t have insulted her, then. 

Spring learns fast, you comment. 

He tells you to stop calling him ‘Spring’, that he has a fucking name, that if you’re going to sit here and talk at him, you might as well use it. You point out that he hasn’t given you his name.

Slick, he finally says. That’s what I go by. She fuckin’ hates it.

You aren’t surprised, that he would choose an epithet out of spite. You tell him that’s a strange name for a spring deity. For a deity at all. You don’t give him yours, because he hasn’t asked.

He tells you to go fuck yourself.

You want to know if he kisses his mother with that mouth. He snarls harder. Impressive, for such a little thing. He tells you that overripe bitch ain’t his mother. You aren’t sure what to make of that, but you say you never took her for the maternal type anyway. You want to know if he works for her, if he’s fucking her, what. You don’t actually voice this; you’re not the type to ask those kinds of questions. It isn’t your business.

Anyone with a pair of functioning eyes would be able to see she ain’t the maternal type , he tells you anyway. He says she thinks she’s a fucking queen. You refrain from pointing out that as a seasonal goddess, as one of the Fourteen, she falls barely short of that. Her life is tied to that of the land, the same as all of yours are. Might be that she’s got a bigger stake in it, though.

It’s quiet, except for the crackle and roar of the fire. It’s too hot for your tastes; you’ve never liked summer in these lands anyway. It’s different from what you’re used to; the Underworld has a way about it that puts a chill in your bones, a bite in your step. You don’t mind it. You catch yourself before you can wonder if _he’d_ mind it. 

You stay anyway, and the sun and moon arc in the sky until the flames burn out, and he finally stands. He bets she’s still pissed, he says, and green shoots unfurl near his feet, grow until oleander is sprouting and curling around both your ankles. You say nothing; you can see the mountain of souls you need to process already. He stretches out, lithe, and you glance away. There’s something like glee in his voice when he says he’d better go make her mood worse. 

He doesn’t bother thanking you for keeping him company, or mention it at all, but you didn’t expect him to. He hadn’t talked too much,  but you’ve gathered a few things based on this. About him and her both: he’d said the god of love cursed her (this, you can believe), and that the god of revels visits sometimes (that, you can also believe). You tolerate the both of them, you’re surprised to find that he does as well. He doesn’t seem to have the patience for it. You aren’t surprised that he doesn’t mention others; you are surprised that he’s stayed so long here with you.

You are  also surprised to note that  it wasn’t an unpleasant way, to pass the time.

Even after he’s gone, you linger, watch his figure grow smaller as he marches towards the burnt ruin, embers still winking from the soot. You wait, and you watch, and all her work is undone in a riot of leaf and color. Ostentatious, pointless spite. You can picture him baring his teeth in a pleased smile as he surveys it all.

You leave, before you decide to go and see your imagination does it justice. 

**iii.**

When you meet him for the third time, it is different.

When you meet him for the third time, it is him, coming to you, bleeding gold down the side of his face and on one side where his arm should be.

You don’t know how he got here, you don’t know what happened, all you know is cold anger that someone would hurt him this way. Violence is a part of who you are- who you all are, as a group, but not like this. Not against each other.

You don’t get the chance to ask him what happened, but war still simmers in your veins. It only quiets because when he sees you, he holds your gaze, and collapses.

You take him to your abode, deep in the Underworld. It is not a place of healing; it is not a place for life. But, you think, he would not be here if it wasn’t the place that was safest for him. This much, you’ve gathered. You ignore that you’re pleased it’s with you; he’s the type of calculated that the _who_ might not matter so much as the _where_. No one can enter or leave without your permission, not even other gods. Normally, they do not want to enter in the first place, but for a select few. If this changes, you have no issue barring your domain.

He rests, he sleeps.

He stays.

.

.

.

The Underworld is dark and drear, painted in shades of deep charcoal and deeper black. It is quiet, from Elysium where you do not go, right down to Tartarus. Anything there has already screamed its voice out. The fields of Asphodel wave gentle wheat in the distance, stretching out in faint eternity.

If you are very quiet, you could hear the running water of the rivers through your realm.

You are often quiet. Your companion is not. Gods heal fast, especially ones like him. You don’t know if it is his powers, or just a refusal to be abed longer than he needs to be.

You get the story out of him, little by little. A fight, that rat fucking bastard who calls himself the Guardian, and, of course, her. He doesn’t say that he lost, he talks around it. He doesn’t say she did it either, but from the way his face twists and grows thunderous, you know she did. Who else could it be? The Guardian himself is only ever a watcher; you would have him in your realm if you cared to. But he makes you uncomfortable in the way observers only can, and you do not trust him enough to harbor him. Instead, he sits at the top of Olympus and looks, and looks, and looks.

You'd dash his head against the rocks and watch it shatter, and he would deserve it. You think about this satisfaction whenever you change his bandages and your fingers come away smeared bloody gold. It happens less and less often, as he heals. You are not a healer, but you know the basics of wound care. If you get advice from two others, you choose to keep it to yourself; you'll hoard his goodwill for a little longer, what precious little of it there is to go around.

When you look at Slick, you wonder why he chose to intervene in this. You do not ask. You learn very quickly it is a sore topic.

You learn very quickly that there are _many_ sore topics. You don’t think you expected much else. He’s not sensitive, not like you might describe someone else. No, what he is, is angry. He’s filled to the brim with it more so than anyone else you’ve imagined. You think he could pour all that wrath out and melt the world down and still have some left over. You shouldn’t find that as endearing as you do, but you have the good sense to keep it to yourself.

(You get an answer to your question when you’d first met, about whether he’s warm. He is, he burns like the sun. And you, hapless Icarus, perhaps, if you were the type to equate your situation with a mortal’s.)

You are aware of him even when you are not with him, even when he starts to wander your halls and leaves bloody, restless leaves and flowers in his wake. You press some of them between the pages of books, you have your wraiths quietly sweep up the rest. You do not think he knows he’s doing it; you do not think he would appreciate your pointing it out. He is off-balance without his arm and eye, and when you tell him much later that they are unlikely to return, when you tell him he could speak to the Tailor, his eyes burn and the room erupts with the cracking of roots and the shove of thorns. 

Stone crumbles and gives way with clouds of dust that hang in the air like smoke.

He leaves you bleeding from a thousand small cuts that you dismiss in an instant. You do not rot his barriers to nothing, but you feel his anger like a throb in the back of your skull, attuned as you are to all things in your realm. You leave him to it. And when he is done, he does not apologize, only say he’s a fuckin’ god, but he presses against your side for a lingering moment. You say yes, he is. The scent of what you later learn is hyacinth follows you around for the rest of the day, but you never find the blossoms. 

The room is destroyed beyond repair, replaced by a riot of plants you later learn are poisonous. No one goes near it but him, and you swear sometimes that you see him adding to it. You don't say anything about it, either way. You suspect he is waiting for a reaction, and you take pride in not giving it to him.

You expect him to leave, even then, but he doesn’t. You don’t talk about it. 

Instead, you tell him he’s welcome to go where he wishes. He doesn’t need to remain confined to your halls. Everywhere, you tell him, except Tartarus. You don’t tell him it’s for his own safety, instead, you say the permissions are a pain to deal with. If he wants to visit, he’ll have to tell you, and you’ll have to ask up above. Predictably, he does not want to visit.

Sometimes, you walk with him. When you can spare the time- and sometimes when you shouldn’t. You can only pass judgement on so many sorry sinners before you need a break. They’ll keep, you know, and you intend to make up the hours when he decides to leave during the day- or what passes for day, here. There’s nothing to do but wait.

It is late now, though, the darkness velvet. You two stand before the banks of the River Styx. Hatred flows through this, you tell him. You are indifferent to it, but he tells you he knows, everyone knows. He asks how much it’d hurt to be dipped in. You invite him to try. You won’t fish him out. You’ve got a new suit on, you won’t be ruining it for him.

This is a lie, but he doesn’t need to know that.

He kneels at the water, his face inscrutable. It’s calm, and you don’t like that. No, that’s not right. You don’t know what to make of it; he looks a different person, with the anger replaced by something more contemplative. He moves as if to reach out to touch the water with an arm that’s no longer there, and catches himself just before he topples over into it.

You’re still tense, when he turns to look at you. His gaze is accusing, hunted. You look back at him and say nothing; you wonder if he’s expecting you to comment on his near mistake, to mock his vulnerability. You’d told him that gods heal fast, but there’s things that even an immortal can’t come back from.

Instead, you offer him your hand. He ignores it as he straightens up,

You watch him go and you think, _no_. 

You don’t say anything to stop him, though. It’s not a bad view, all things told.

But next time-

Maybe next time.

**iv.**

You are in the sorry excuse of a garden that your abode boasts, and you are holding a fruit out to him. The skin of the pomegranate gleams in the scant light. You’re not one for growing things, you say. But the soil is good.

Soil’s good because it’s made of fuckin’ corpses, he tells you. This is not a lie, so you say nothing to disagree. He says he’s not one for _gardening_ either. He says gardening like it’s the worst kind of curse. He says that growing things is different. He stamps his foot against the ground, and it shudders under him. Grass sprouts, greens, withers. Does it again, and again, each time taller.

You can’t say you care for the change in aesthetic. You tell him black and red is the way to go, and all at once, they shift to dark swaying branches with berries like drops of blood. You don’t know what kind of plants these are, but you suspect you wouldn’t find them anywhere else. Still, it’s better. You don’t tell him that; he doesn’t want or need your praise, and you’re not going to stop keeping that close to your chest just for him. There’s plenty you’d do just for him, you think. But not that.

Your response is to dig your thumbs into the fruit and pry it open into two jagged halves. Ruby-red, the seeds beg to be eaten. The juice is sticky under your nails. Normally you’d use a knife, normally you’d put some care into it. But sometimes you have to get your hands dirty.

The way he watches your mouth when you lick your fingers clean, one by one, almost makes it worth it.

He tells you he’ll be running the joint in five years. Ten at the outside. He says it like it’s a challenge. You decide not to tell him about the paperwork. He doesn’t have a head for paperwork; you don’t imagine that _spring_ of all things has much. Instead you say that you look forward to seeing what he does with the place. 

It can’t get worse, he says. He’s wrong, but you’re not going to tell him that yet.  He snatches half the fruit from your hand, and your breath catches in your throat. You didn’t ask, and he didn’t answer, but this is better, you think.

H e says he’s going to make a whole city outta this place, do something proper with the mess you have here. There’s good bones for it, he says. You don’t know where a young god learned about municipal planning, and you tell him this. He ignores it to ask you what it should be called. Then- no, he says. He knows what he’ll call it, and do you have a problem with that?

You don’t.  You reiterate what you just said. He calls you a lazy bastard  and tells you this city called Midnight is going to be _his_ business, you got it?

You don’t have much to say to that;  if he wants a city, you won’t stop him. If he wants to run it, you say, he better not come bother you about it. Not unless it’s important, you amend. You have to deal with enough paperwork as is, and it keeps piling up. You might have reasonable office hours, but dying mortals do not.  You don’t care what he wants, what he does with the city, you just want him to stay. It’s too honest; you don’t say it. You think he can read it on your face anyway.

Fine, he says. Snarls.

He bites into the heart of the fruit savagely, the seeds bursting in his mouth, juice dripping down his chin. His lips  stain  red, his teeth  are bloody with the pulp. You shouldn’t find it so affecting. You lean in to kiss him anyway, and the fruit is tart and perfectly ripe for a single starburst of a moment before it turns to dust against your tongue.

(He doesn’t, though.  Instead, he bites your lip hard enough that it bleeds, caught in those  _fucking_ teeth of his, and golden ichor smears into your kiss.)

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to make this Stabdads, Zagreus Hadesgame is already like Karkat from that one meme I saw, and you cannot tell me Aradia wouldn't love the hell (ha) out of the Underworld. For all you know, she exists as DD's adopted ghosty child and I just didn't write her in.


End file.
